


One Thing He Has To Do

by tricia_16



Category: Supernatural
Genre: 12x23 coda, Emotional Dean, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-19
Updated: 2017-05-19
Packaged: 2018-11-02 15:46:09
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,807
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10947654
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tricia_16/pseuds/tricia_16
Summary: A look into Dean's thought process after the events of 12x23, and a happy Destiel ending to get us through to season 13.





	One Thing He Has To Do

**Author's Note:**

> I hope this helps some of you get past some of the pain of 12x23. We can all dream this is something that would ever happen on this show.

“NO!” Dean yells uselessly as he watches Grace surge in Cas’s body and then go out with a flicker.

He can hear Lucifer talking, but he has no idea what he’s saying because Cas is dead. Cas just got an angel blade through the back right before his eyes and he couldn’t do a God damn thing to stop it.

Suddenly his mom is there, and yah, he has a startled second to think how bad ass his mom is for punching the fucking devil in the face, and then before he knows what’s happened she’s gone too. And then Sam runs away into the cottage and Dean is left kneeling at Cas’s empty vessel.

Dean realizes with a dry sob that Cas isn’t the only one who’s empty now.

This is his worst nightmare.

The last time this happened, and he thought Cas was really gonna die, Cas said he loved him. Dean couldn’t even react because why would Cas tell him _then_ when he was fucking dying and neither of them could do a damn thing about it? Then just like that he was back to being okay again, and Dean didn’t know what he was supposed to do with what happened. Did he mean it like Dean’s said before – like Cas loved him like a brother? Dean didn’t think so. He thinks it was more. What he’d always secretly wanted to hear but was too much of a fucking pussy to go after.

He told himself then that he’d say something. Anything. Cas _gets_ him. He didn’t have to say those three words for Cas to know how he felt. He could get Cas to understand, and he knew Cas would be as patient with him as Dean needed him to be, but he knew, he just _knew_ they’d work it out this time.

And then, as usual, everything went to hell in a hand basket. How was he supposed to talk to Cas when he ignored him for weeks? How was he supposed to tell him when he just kept running away? He couldn’t even get him on the fucking phone, how was he supposed to tell him?

And now it’s too late.

Now Castiel, Angel of the Lord, is dead on the ground with his wings scorched into the dirt. His best friend. The only friend he’s ever had that always comes back, no matter how bad he fucks up. Cas comes back. Cas… beautiful, _good_ , angelic Cas didn't deserve to die like that. He doesn't deserve to be laying in the dirt, either. 

Dean doesn’t know what he’s doing other than getting him off of the ground. He picks him up by the shoulders, gently, and cradles his upper body against his chest. He can’t hold back a sob when he thinks about how many times he’s thought of doing this before, and how now that he’s finally doing it, it’s too late. Cas doesn’t know. He’ll never know.

He can’t bare to look down at his face, so he looks up to the sky instead, and he swallows his pride and prays. “Chuck? Come on, man. I’m… I'm _begging_ you. Please. Don’t let this be it, man. Don’t take him from me. I’ve… fuck, I’ve already lost so much, and I _know_ you know. You know that I – I need him, Chuck. Don’t take him from me. _Please_. Please give him back. Put him back together like you always do.”

He takes in a ragged breath and looks down at Cas’s face, searching it for any sign that Chuck heard him. He didn’t know he was crying, but he sees wetness all over Cas’s face and knows it has to be his own. Some broken sound he’s never made in his life starts coming out of him when he has to wipe his own tears off of the face of the man he loves. _Loved_. And the sound keeps coming.

Tears are streaming down his face, mixed with snot from his nose, and he just fucking hurts everywhere, head to toe, with a gaping, black hole inside of his chest that feels like it’s going to swallow him whole. “I LOVE HIM,” he yells at the sky. “Okay? I said it. You happy now, you son of a bitch? You think you can just disappear to figure your own shit out and ignore the whole fucking world? We need you. The world needs you. I saved the frickin' world and now I need you and you _have_ to help me! I need you to give him back to me! Please, God, _please_ , give him back,” Dean sobs, alternating between yelling at the top of his lungs and whispering so low he can barely hear the words come from his mouth.

He swipes a dirty hand across his face and looks down at Cas one more time. He can feel bile rising in his throat when he realizes he’s going to have to burn his body. He can’t afford for something else to use this body, because he doesn’t know if he could kill it. He swallows down the panic best he can and gently lays Cas back down in the dirt – _just for a minute_ , he promises him silently.

He doesn’t remember where all of the wood came from, but all he knows is that he’s building a pyre for the vessel of the angel he’s in love with, and he’s never wanted to do anything less in his entire life. When it’s done, he goes inside the cottage for a sheet to wrap his body up in, and can almost hear the echo of himself saying, “ _We’ll work out our crap, we always do._ ” He swallows down more bile as fresh tears stream down his face. They didn’t have the chance to figure it out this time, and he wishes he had told Cas that he wasn’t really mad at him, that he gets him too much to stay mad at him. He should’ve taken thirty fucking seconds to say it and he didn’t. Now he’d never get the chance.

He grabs a sheet off of a bed in a room he didn’t even know was there until now, and he walks back out through the door to Cas’s body. He lays the sheet flat on the ground and ever so gently, he drags Cas’s body on top of it. He folds the corners across his chest and his feet, but he stops before he covers his face. He brushes a lock of hair that has fallen on to his forehead back up like the rest of it.

He has a thought – a creepy thought, actually - but he has it anyway.

He never got to hold Cas’s hand when Cas knew it wasn’t just brotherly. He never got to sling his arm around his shoulders and nuzzle into neck. He never got to run his hands through that hair of his, and he never got to tell him how much he loves the colour blue… all because of his eyes. He’ll never see those eyes looking at him again. He never got to hold him in his arms and wake up tangled with him in his bed. He never got to feel Cas’s lips move under his, but he can’t – he _won’t_ – say goodbye to him without kissing him just once. He never got to tell him he loved him, and yah, he’s gone now, but his vessel is here and even if it’s creepy to kiss a dead guy, it’s better than never kissing him at all.

He looks around to make sure Sam didn’t come back, and sees that the coast is clear. Even now, after losing him and admitting how he feels about him, it’s so hard to do this. It goes against everything he’s ever tried to be and everything he's fought to bury deep down inside of him for the last damn-near ten years. _But where the fuck did that get him?_  he thinks bitterly.

So he lets himself have this. He runs his hand down the razor sharp angle of his jaw. His breath hitches when he feels Cas’s stubble under his fingers. He caresses his cheek bone with his thumb, and hates that he’ll never feel the curve of his smile under his hands. He brushes his fingers across his stupidly dry lips, and blinks back tears at how many times he’s looked at them, tempted but too fucking scared to close the distance between them. Would it have been different if he had? Would this have happened if he just acted on all these feelings inside of him? He’ll never know.

He wipes his tears and the snot away from his face again, and wipes Cas’s face too. And then without another thought, before he can talk himself out of it for the millionth fucking time, he leans in and brushes his lips against Castiel’s. He isn’t cold yet, but he isn’t warm, and he doesn’t move, and it isn’t right, and it isn’t nearly enough, but it’s something he finally got to do and when he pulls away, his entire body shakes with sobs because now he knows.

It would’ve been really good.

He still would’ve been the same guy if he kissed Cas. He still would’ve been into chicks, but he would’ve been into Cas more. He wouldn’t have had to hide how he felt all the time, and they could’ve been together, and this is the worst part – maybe he could’ve been happy for once in his life.

Now he’d never be. Not without Cas.

“I loved you,” he croaks. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. But God, Cas, if you’re out there somewhere and you can hear me, I loved you so fuckin’ much.” He presses a final kiss to his forehead and covers his face with the sheet.

He hears footsteps approaching and he wipes his face for what feels like the hundredth time. Sam stands there. He has tears streaming down his face, too, and he comes close enough so that he can give Dean a hand and pull him up. They both look down at the body laying on the ground, and without a word, they lift him up and set him down on the pyre like they’ve done with so many bodies before.

They both stand and watch as the fire eats away at his body. The smell is enough to make Dean retch, but there’s nothing inside of him.

Sam places a heavy hand on Dean’s shoulder, and without looking at him, he says, “He knew, Dean.”

Dean forgets how much he hates moments like these in his absolute desperation of wanting that to be true. “You think?” He asks, throat dry and voice hoarse.

“I know. Everybody knew, Dean,” Sam says softly and Dean feels hope deep into him. Somehow it's better if he knew. He hates thinking that he died not knowing. “He loved you, too,” Sam tells him, his voice cracking.

Dean lets out a shaky breath and nods his head. “I know,” he whispers.

They stand there for a long time together, not saying anything, and not needing to. Finally when all that’s left is ash, Dean looks at his brother and says, “He’s got a habit of coming back, ya know? How many times did I think he was gone and he came back later?”

Sam makes a face that Dean doesn’t want to see, so he looks away. “Dean… Dean, I think this time it’s different,” he says softly. “I’m sorry, but I think he’s really gone this time.”

Dean nods. “I know,” he says just as softly. He looks up at the sky one more time and says, “But if he comes back again? If I get another chance, I’m gonna tell him this time. I’m gonna make sure he knows, and I’m not ever gonna let the stupid son of a bitch out of my sight again.”

Dean hears a small laugh come from Sam and turns towards him again.

“The nephilim…” Sam says.

“Not tonight, Sam. I just can’t tonight,” Dean says, and that’s enough of an explanation for Sam.

“Okay,” he says with a nod.

“I just… I’m gonna grab a sleeping bag from the trunk and sleep out here tonight. And we can deal with everything else in the morning.”

“You uh, want any company?” Sam asks, uncertain.

“Nah, I just need some time tonight.”

Sam nods and walks back into the cottage. Dean thinks absentmindedly while he unrolls his sleeping bag between the marks of Cas’s wings - he always loved these wings - on the ground that the nephilim must not be in there anymore, but that’s the last conscious thought he has before his body gives up the fight against all the physical and emotional pain he’s been through that day and he falls into a deep sleep.

He wakes up to sunshine and the sound of nature all around him. He rolls over on to his back, rubs at his eyes… and then he remembers and he feels his stomach drop. Cas is gone. Cas is dead. His mom’s been sent to the alternate reality with fucking Lucifer – where not-Bobby is – and there’s a nephilim somewhere in the world they have to find and kill. All without Cas.

He hears footsteps approaching and he knows Sam’s up and ready to go do whatever the fuck he’s figured out they need to do. He runs his hands down his face and finally blinks his eyes against the too-bright sun and the tall figure shadowed in front of him. His heart starts racing and he blinks his eyes harder, then shakes his head to try and clear it.

He knows that shadow, and it isn’t Sammy.

“C-Cas?” He chokes out, hesitantly.

“Hello, Dean,” he hears. And he’d know that low, raspy voice anywhere.

He’s up on his feet in an instant, arms around Cas’s neck, holding him tighter than he’s ever held anybody. He feels tears streaming down his face again, this time mixed with a strange-sounding laughter that’s got to be the sound of relief. He breaks away long enough to place a hand on each shoulder and really look at him.

 _Those eyes_ , he thinks, heart thudding wildly in his chest.

“Cas? Is it really you?” He asks.

Cas’s mouth quirks up in what passes as a smile for him and says, “I always come when you call, Dean.”

Dean’s mind flashes back to when he called out his name last night. He drops his hands and takes a step back as his face flushes with colour. “You heard me?”

Cas nods his head. “I understand if you didn’t mean the things you spoke of. If perhaps you were not in the right state of mind after my death to be making such declarations,” Cas says. “But I hope you also understand that I did mean what I told you while I was dying from Ramiel’s poison.” This time it’s Cas’s hand that comes up to cup his face, and Dean feels something wedge in his throat. “I love you, Dean,” Castiel says confidently and calmly. “Not like a brother and not like a friend,” he clarifies. “I’m in love with you.”

Dean covers Cas’s hand with his and squeezes gently. He tries to swallow around the lump in his throat. “I meant it,” he manages to say. “It’s hard for me to say, and I won’t pretend it doesn’t scare the shit outta me, Cas, but I meant it. I… ya know… you, too, Cas.”

Dean is almost blinded by the actual smile he gets from Cas. One of his rarest smiles, with perfectly white teeth shining at him, and crinkles at the corner of his eyes. “I know,” Cas says happily. “But it feels wonderful to hear you say it.”

Dean wraps his arms around him and pulls him in for a long hug. He buries his face in the curve of his neck and inhales the familiar, perfect scent of Cas. His Cas.

“We okay?” Dean asks after he pulls away.

“We’ll work out our crap like we always do,” Cas says with a twitch of his lips.

“Nah, not like we always do,” Dean says with a shake of his head. “It’s gonna be different this time. Coz we’re… ya know, together, right?”

Castiel shows teeth when he smiles again, and Dean can feel an almost forgotten warmth inside of his chest. “I’d like that.”

Dean smiles back almost shyly and says, “Me too, Cas. Me, too.”

They stare at each other for a little while, as they often do, and then Dean finally says, “Okay, angel. Let’s go save the world.”

And they walk back into the cabin hand in hand to find Sam.


End file.
